Category: News Feeds

How do you know if law school is worth the six-figure investment? And how do those high costs of legal education impact the diversity of the legal profession?

There’s a lot of discussion and data out there about law school costs and diversity and on this week’s episode of The Jabot podcast, I dig into the details with Kyle McEntee, Executive Director of Law School Transparency. We talk not just about the cost of legal education but about how to make law school more accessible, affordable, and innovative. We also discuss the details of LST’s new report on the structural changes needed to make law schools more diverse and to lower the amount of debts students need to attend.

The Jabot podcast is an offshoot of the Above the Law brand focused on the challenges women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse populations face in the legal industry. Our name comes from none other than the Notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the jabot (decorative collar) she wears when delivering dissents from the bench. It’s a reminder that even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.

Happy listening!

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

The coronavirus pandemic has always been Excusemas for racists. In addition to Donald Trump going out of his way to whip up racism against East Asian people, it’s provided an excellent excuse to end immigration, which is what this administration wanted from the start. In the past month or so, the Trump administration has closed the Mexican border, even though the United States had far more coronavirus cases at the time than Latin America. It has expelled asylum seekers and immigrant minors without interviews, in direct violation of US and international law. It has suspended visa processing, ended refugee resettlement, postponed citizenship ceremonies, and more.

And this week, it took the next logical step: It will no longer issue green cards, which confer lawful permanent residency, in most cases.

It actually looked worse than that on Monday, when the incompetent clown who has somehow gained control of my country announced (via Twitter, natch) that he was going to end all immigration. But losing guest workers turned out to be unpopular with some of the companies that Trump needs to continue propping up the economy, so he backpedaled on Tuesday and turned it into a ban on green cards.

The details are unclear right now, since Trump tends to spring new immigration policies on the relevant federal agencies without bothering to tell them. In fact, the New York Times said Tuesday that DOJ was still studying whether this plan is even legal. That article said it’s a 60-day suspension of new green cards for every applicant except those who are children or spouses of US citizens. That means green cards will be unavailable to other relatives of citizens; relatives of green card holders; anyone who is applying for a green card through employment; and a handful of other people, including former translators and other workers for the US military whose lives are threatened because they helped us.

Trump says this “will help put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs as America reopens,” and if I were a fool, I would believe that. But this has never been about economic competition between immigrants and native-born US citizens, which studies consistently show doesn’t really exist. (The flaming liberals over at the Cato Institute once called it “a wrongheaded idea that just refuses to die.”) When nobody’s listening, Trump welcomes European immigrants, who are in a much better position to compete with American workers than the subsistence farmers of Guatemala. He’s even married a couple, and brought another into the White House despite suspect credentials.

This is about whipping up the far-right voter base with prejudice. And the Supreme Court majority has already shown that it does not care.

Lorelei Laird is a freelance writer specializing in the law, and the only person you know who still has an “I Believe Anita Hill” bumper sticker. Find her at wordofthelaird.com.

* The prosecutor who resigned over a sentencing memo in the Roger Stone case has joined the DC Attorney General’s Office. Seems like he landed on his feet. [Hill]

* A New Jersey lawyer cannot be readmitted to practice unless he shows that his wife has no access to his accounts, checkbooks, and other financial records. There must be a good story behind this… [ABA Journal]

* A federal judge has dismissed a malicious prosecution claim filed by Jussie Smollett stemming from the attack he allegedly staged to increase his profile. [USA Today]

* A Kentucky lawyer has been charged with making terroristic threats after allegedly threatening Kentucky’s governor. This attorney should brush up on his constitutional law. [Hill]

* Dozens of in-house lawyers are agreeing to pay cuts in order to help their companies deal with issues created by COVID-19. [Bloomberg Law]

* A knife-wielding lawyer allegedly forced a journalist to delete footage of this attorney at a shelter-at-home protest. Guess this lawyer took the law into his own hands… [New York Post]

Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

The donation consisted of 4 070 N95 and three-ply masks, 33 200 pairs of latex gloves, 200 pairs of goggles, 20 000 alcohol swabs and 10 litres of anti-bacterial soap, altogether valued at ZWL$1 649 804.

Handing over the equipment to ministry officials at the association’s Harare offices, AHFoZ chief executive Shylet Sanyanga said the bulk of the items donated was personal protective equipment, as AHFoZ and its members wanted to contribute to ensuring that health professionals on the frontline were protected against the deadly virus.

She said members of AHFoZ, which is the umbrella body for the country’s medical aid societies, were conscious of the fact that they were in the health business and that the battle against COVID-19 was not for government alone.

It was in the light of this that AHFoZ had mobilised resources to assist in the fight against COVID‑19.

“We know that the task at hand is huge and that this donation might appear small in comparison to the task. However, it is a sincere gesture to demonstrate the commitment of AHFoZ to complementing government’s efforts in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. We will continue to complement these efforts,” she said.

Post published in: Featured

Chief Justice’s Practice Direction 2 of 2020 on Court Operations during the Extension of the National Shutdown

On Sunday 19th April – following the President’s announcement of the extension of the National Shutdown from 20th April to 3rd May – the Chief Justice issued the following self-explanatory Practice Direction 2 of 2020.  The new Practice Direction amends Practice Direction 1 of 2020 [see Court Watch 3/2020 [link]] to take account of the extension of the National Lockdown.

PRACTICE DIRECTION 2 OF 2020

COURT OPERATIONS DURING THE COVID-19 NATIONAL LOCKDOWN PERIOD

AMENDMENT NOTICE

Amendment to Practice Direction 1 of 2020

1)  Practice Direction 1 of 2020 is amended in paragraphs 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 by the deletion of those paragraphs and substitution with the following:-

Criminal matters

“10. All pending criminal cases originally remanded to the dates shown in Column ‘A’ shall be automatically rolled over to the dates shown in column ‘B’:-

11. 11.All summonsesand subpoenas issued directing accused persons and witnesses to appear in court between 20 April 2020 and 3 May 2020 are cancelled and shall be reissued after the expiry of the lockdown period.
12. 12.Allsales in execution are hereby stayed for the duration of the lockdown period.”

Effective date

13. 13.Inlight of the extension of the period of lockdown, this Practice Direction shall accordingly remain in effect until the expiry of the extended lockdown period.”

Hon. Mr Justice L Malaba

Chief Justice of Zimbabwe

HARARE

19 April 2020

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied.

Post published in: Featured

1.         Introduction
On 27 March 2020, President Mnangagwa declared a 21-day national lockdown which ended on 19 April 2020. The lockdown was extended for another 14 days to 3 May 2020. The extension of the lockdown was followed by the gazetting of Statutory Instrument (SI) 2020-094 Public Health (COVID-19 Prevention, Containment and Treatment) (National Lockdown) (Amendment) Order, 2020 on 21 April 2020. The SI in large part replicated the original lockdown Instrument. Of note is that the new instrument designated journalists, newspaper vendors, internet service providers and broadcast services as essential services.On days 22 and 23 of the lockdown, official statistics by the Ministry of Health and Child Care indicated that COVID-19 confirmed cases had increased to twenty-eight (28), whilst the number of deaths relating to COVID-19 remained at three (3). The Ministry of Health and Child Care decentralised COVID-19 testing to provincial and district level, leading to an increase in daily tests of suspected cases. Thus as of 21 April, cumulative tests of suspected COVID-19 cases had increased to four thousand one hundred and forty-nine (4 149), of which four thousand one hundred and twenty-one (4 121) were negative.
2.         Methodology

This report encompasses reports covering the 10 provinces of the country through reports received from the following Forum Members:

• Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP)
• Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)
• Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR)
• Counselling Services Unit (CSU)
• Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights, (ZADHR)
• Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights)

Post published in: Featured